Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives in support of the Garífuna people

For decades, Garífuna communities living in their ancestral territories along the Caribbean north coast on Honduras have faced violent dispossession by third-party settlers including extractivist projects, tourism complexes, drug-trafficking, and the palm-oil industry - illegally authorized by the Honduran government and backed by transnational investors and International Financial Institutions.

Nearly nine years ago, in a landmark case, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) found the State of Honduras responsible for violating the legitimate land rights of the Garífuna communities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra. In recent months, the IACHR likewise found the State of Honduras responsible for violating the land rights of the San Juan community. While the State of Honduras recently installed the High Level Commission for the Compliance of the IACHR judgements, after mass mobilizations by the the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), efforts to violently dispossess Garifuna communities from their ancestral territories have only intensified.

In 2019, OFRANEH reported the death of 16 Garífuna leaders, including six women. In 2020, four Garífuna men from Triunfo de la Cruz, including community leader Alberth Sneider Centeno, were abducted at gunpoint by men wearing the uniforms of the U.S.-trained Police Directorate of Investigations (DPI). They have not been seen since. In 2023, an armed group of men entered the home of Miriam Miranda in Vallecito, Colon in a murder attempt. Most recently, in 2024, Garifuna land defenders in Triunfo de la Cruz have faced increasing levels of intimidation and harassment by third-party settlers working with corporate interests.

On June 5, 2024, in an important act of solidarity, Rep. Bush (MO-01) with support from Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Rep. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia (IL-04), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) reintroduced a resolution in the House of Representatives (H.Res. 1278) condemning the violent and illegal appropriation of Garífuna territory, urging the Department of State and multilateral development banks to respect the rights of the Garifuna people, and calling on the Government of Honduras to fully comply with the resolutions of multilateral human rights bodies which mandate the return of Garífuna land and territory.